Linda Perhacs, the esteemed folk musician who had been reported missing, has been located and is safe, the authorities confirmed Thursday.
Friends of the 82-year-old singer-songwriter said this week that they were unable to contact her or her legal guardian since her discharge eight months ago from a care facility in Northridge, Calif., and that a report was filed with adult protective services. On Thursday, days after a call-out on social media, Laurel Stearns, Perhacs’s former manager, said in a statement that Perhacs had been found.
“We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who helped amplify this effort by sharing information, reaching out with support and expressing genuine care for Linda’s well-being,” Stearns said in the statement.
It continued: “We ask that Linda’s privacy be respected as those close to her determine the best path forward. We hope this moment allows for compassion, healing and continued support for an artist whose work has touched so many lives.”
The statement went on to thank the authorities and members of the music community who worked to ensure Perhacs was found safely.
Officer Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, confirmed Perhacs’s well-being and safety, and said a missing persons report had been filed and was resolved Wednesday.
In the late 1960s, Perhacs was working as a dental hygienist in Los Angeles and experimenting with songwriting on the side when one of her patients, the acclaimed composer Leonard Rosenman, helped start her career.
The singer released her debut album, “Parallelograms,” in 1970 to little commercial success, but her following grew in the late 1990s and early 2000s when there was a resurgence of interest in that record and several reissues. She released her second album, “The Soul of All Natural Things,” in 2014, and a third, “I’m a Harmony,” in 2017.
Earlier this week, Fernando Perdomo, who worked as a co-producer on Perhacs’s last two albums, posted a since-deleted video to social media in which he described an attempt to contact the musician six weeks ago. In the video, Perdomo said he had learned that she had been moved but had been unable to reach her “next of kin.” (He later clarified by email that he was referring to Perhacs’s legal guardian when he’d said “next of kin.”)
Perhacs was being treated for dementia at the facility in Northridge, in Los Angeles County. She is now residing in a new care facility, according to a post shared to Perhacs’s social media page and by her friends.
“The community really came together to ensure Linda’s well-being!” the post read.
